1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to alarm handling in wireless security or fire alarm systems, and, more particularly, to alarm handling in IEEE 802.11-based wireless security or fire alarm systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally proprietary technologies or ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4 based technologies are used for wireless security systems, such as intrusion detection, fire, and alarm systems. However, IEEE802.11 based wireless security/fire alarm systems are not known in the prior art.
In typical wireless security/fire systems, the length of the network lifetime is critical. Because changing the battery of the sensor unit/station is very inconvenient for the customer, such networks are designed to have long battery lifetimes of multiple years. On the other hand, it would be desirable for such delay sensitive systems that stations in a network be able to receive or transmit network packets at any time. Thus, it is not desired to allow a sensor/station to stay in a power saving mode all the time because the sensor/station would not be able to receive or transmit any network packets while in the power saving mode.
Another problem of the prior art is that the channel from the sensor unit/station to the access point/hub may have such bad quality that alarm messages from the sensor/station cannot reach the destined access point/hub.
What is neither disclosed nor suggested by the prior art is a IEEE802.11 based wireless security/fire alarm system in which the above-described and other limitations of the prior art may be improved upon.